1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to methods for controlling actuators. The actuators are applicable to the robotics industry.
2. Description of Related Art
As is well known, an actuator having a deceleration function for flexible movement of a joint is used in robots within various fields, including industrial robots to humanoid robots.
Particularly, in robotics technology, which has been rapidly developed in recent years, an existing robotics mechanism used solely for a specific industry is coupled with the fields of other industries for technical fusion and composition. An example includes the development and production of a home cleaning robot, a programmable education robot, a toy robot, an entertainment robot, and the like.
In such robot technology, it is very important to control a driving-related actuator, or more exactly, a driving motor.
For example, a robot having a multitude of actuators requires an enhanced control mechanism in order to accurately control each of the actuators, and also organically control all the actuators in a correlative manner.
Particularly, when a large number of actuators are controlled by one central controller, a sensor unit (i.e., encoders 1, . . . , n) which senses a state of the actuator, and a driving unit (i.e., motors 1, . . . , n) for supplying a driving voltage to the actuator, are included for each actuator, and thus, four wirings are necessary between an actuator control unit (i.e., a motor controller) and the driving unit, and six separate wirings are necessary between the actuator control unit and the sensor unit.
Therefore, when N actuators are connected to the actuator control unit, a total of 10n wirings are necessary. As the number of actuators constituting the robot increases, the structure of the robot is greatly limited due to difficulty in wiring handling. In addition, if the number of actuators should increase or decrease due to a change in the design of the robot, then problems arise in that it becomes necessary to change all of the actuator controllers, sensor units, and driving units.
In the conventional actuator, since the types of information which can be fed back from the sensor unit are limited to a rotational speed, a position, and the like, of the motor, it is difficult to implement an automatic control mechanism which directly recognizes and copes with a problem generated in the operation of the actuator, such as overcurrent generation or internally overheating.
In addition, in a scheme wherein a large number of actuators are directly connected to the actuator control unit, a plurality of actuators should be accurately controlled simultaneously or sequentially in order to control the large number of actuators in a correlative manner. A load of signal processing according to such a control process is all concentrated on one actuator control unit, and thus, it is difficult to expect a smooth operation of the robot having the large number of actuators.
In order to address and improve the above, the applicant has filed a patent application titled “Network-type Actuator Module” on Dec. 21, 2006 (Korean Patent Application No. 2006-0131526 and Patent No. 0846177).
However, robot technology has continuously evolved, and there is a need for fast and simultaneous collection and processing of a variety of information related to driving the robot.
Therefore, a protocol re-maintenance task is required to realize more flexible driving control by enhancing the patented technology of the applicant.